Embrace the power of cooked tomatoes
While there’s nothing like a summer treat—a platter of fresh tomatoes, mozzarella, and basil, for example—cooked tomatoes pack a bigger health benefit. “Heating tomatoes increases the lycopene, a powerful antioxidant in tomatoes, that’s available for the body to absorb,” says Lindsey Janeiro, a registered dietitian in Sarasota, Florida.
In fact, a recent study showed that when tomatoes were cooked for 30 minutes, their lycopene content increased by more than 164 percent.
